Queen's and Canada

by Robert Bruce Taylor

Excerpt

Co-education, so far as university life in Canada is con cerned, began in Queen's. Women were admitted, to begin with, to the Faculty of Arts. The question then arose why they should not be allowed to study Medicine. The thing had not hitherto been done in Canada, but it was done here. The very novelty of the scheme attracted a singularly able group of women. There were, however, difficulties not a few in the carry ing on of a medical school for men and women where the schoolitself was small. Consequently, when the University of Toronto opened the doors of its medical faculty to women, Queen's decided to restrict its work in this field to men.

The Extra-mural system, which has been of such benefit to teachers throughout the Dominion, began almost by accident. Students with the long summer vacation before them used to ask their professors for guidance in their reading. Gradually this counsel came to be increasingly important till the question arose, as to whether credit might not be given for such reading provided the student possessed the necessary academic require ments for entering upon a course of university study, followed the University curriculum in his reading, and passed the same examinations as the student attending the classes in Queen's. The idea was not in itself new. London University had shown the Way. But the conditions in Canada made the problem largely new, and the regulations governing it have been modified con siderably as the result of the long years of trial. The system, however, has been of the greatest value to the Dominion. Every where one meets men in high positions in the educational world who received their opportunity through the Extra-mural system.